Ahead by a Mille: Wayde van Niekerk on the watch he wore to win gold at the Olympics

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It’s when the sublime coincides with the unexpected that sport’s immortal moments are achieved. Olympics night owls who stayed up on August 14 to watch Usain Bolt taking his historic third 100-metre gold will attest to that. Not because of Bolt’s performance – his victory was entirely expected – but because sporting nirvana had been reached earlier that evening, in the men’s 400-metre final.

Indeed, Wayde van Niekerk’s obliteration of Michael Johnson’s long-standing world record still seemed unlikely even as the South African entered the closing straight in the lead. Tearing off the bend in lane eight, just at the moment when an outside runner should surrender advantage to the centre of the track, van Niekerk appeared to be caught by a gust of wind, and took off into sporting posterity. It was majestic, thrilling and wholly improbable – and for the habitual watch-spotter it was made all the more so by the fact that he did it with £650,000-worth of firepower on his wrist.

Wayde van Niekerk's triumph at the 2016 Olympic Games

Richard Mille, the maker of the streamlined super-watch that van Niekerk was wearing, has the singular power not only to construct some of the most hi-tech wristwatches on earth, but to compel athletes to wear them while competing. Other fans include Rafael Nadal and the Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake (the latter ended up in hot water at London 2012 for wearing his on the track – evidently a more relaxed approach to sponsorship rules prevailed in Rio). Even so, van Niekerk took some convincing.

‘I’ve never been someone who competes with accessories on, and I’d struggle to wear anything extra,’ he says. ‘It took some getting used to, but I’m absolutely fascinated by it. It’s specifically designed for sport, and so light you forget you’re wearing it.’

The RM27-02

Indeed his watch, simply named the RM 27-02, weighs only 18g (including the strap), despite a unique, complex movement that includes a tourbillon escapement, the normally fragile pocket-watch mechanism that performs a constant rotation in the heart of the dial. ‘I can sit for hours watching it revolve – it’s quite transfixing,’ van Niekerk says.

Mixing traditional horology with futuristic engineering is Mille’s stock-in-trade. In this watch, lightness and strength are achieved through advanced materials including a proprietary form of carbon fibre and Quartz TPT, a mysterious substance composed of tiny silica filaments that are compressed in resin, heated and machined, accounting for the unusual look of the case; equally unconventionally, the bridges of the movement are made from strengthened titanium instead of steel; and all of this is laboriously hand-finished to microscopic tolerances.

The RM27-02

A committed Christian who credits his faith for his success, van Niekerk has a quiet temperament that could seem at odds with Mille’s whizz-bang watches – even after setting the world record, he seemed more reserved than some he’d beaten.

‘I try to analyse everything around me and not get too excited,’ he says. Perhaps, then, it’s the pursuit of perfection that he and Mille share. ‘You train and train for four years, and within

a moment it’s history. I can’t even remember anything about the race itself, and when I watch it, I still can’t quite believe it.’ His watch should be a pretty good reminder.